‘Provoked’ opens to mixed response
Hard-hitting real life drama film “Provoked”, starring Aishwarya Rai, released to a mixed response across India on Friday.
Directed by veteran Jag Mundhra, the film is based on true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, an Indian woman married to a British expatriate and the trials and tribulations she undergoes in ten years of married life.
“The movie is average. It is a good time pass…Aishwarya is good, Navin is also fine…. the music is also average,” a viewer said.
Based on Kiranjit’s autobiography- “Circle of Life” the film traces her lonely struggle in an abusive marriage.
Her decade old endurance of atrocities piled upon by her abusive and violent husband and her retaliation form the basis of “Provoked” whose tagline “Her suffering was unimaginable. Her solution, unthinkable” is self-explanatory.
Ahluwalia was jailed for the murder of her husband whom she killed by setting on fire in retaliation for her sufferings.
After more than three years in prison, she was acquitted in 1992. The case became famous as “Regina vs. Ahluwalia” and made legal history in Britain. It redefined the word “provocation” in the case of a battered woman.
Starring seasoned actors like Nandita Das, Naveen Andrews- a British actor of Indian origin who has the famous series “Lost” to his credit, the film was screened at the coveted Cannes Film Festival and the IIFA weekend in Dubai in 2006.
The film was an acid test for Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai, the leading lady of “Provoked”, who played the real life character probably for the first time in her career and her first audience was Kiranjit herself.
“It is the first time that I got to play a real life character and like I said the incredible responsibility of her (Kiranjit Ahluwalia) being my first audience. And the most relieving, gratifying and rewarding moment was when she reacted so amazingly, wonderfully,” Aishwarya said.
Ahluwalia, who now work as a sorting officer for the Royal Mail in United Kingdom was full of praise for Aishwarya after watching the movie, and said watching her life story on the big screen had been an emotional experience.
“Actually, I did cry a lot, from the beginning. As soon as the film started, you know, I was in tears, There were times I missed so many things in the scenes because it was me, it brought my past back, I could see it, Aishwarya Rai becoming Kiranjit Ahluwalia on the screen, one Kiranjit sitting here and the other Kiranjit over there, facing all the domestic violence,” Kiranjit said.
Through “Provoked”, Director Jag Mundhra tried to bring up the issue of domestic violence from under the wraps and “show mirror to society”.
The film is true to Indian milieu where scores of women undergo harassment at the hands of their husbands. They tolerate the brutalities piled on them to protect their family’s honour and many usually die putting up with domestic violence.
“I wanted to tell the story of this woman and through her tell the story of domestic violence, an issue which is in many Asian homes, it’s always kept under the rug because of this matter of shame,” said Mundhra.
The crew hopes the film is able to bring up the issue of domestic violence out of the closet and help other “Kiranjits’ to raise their voices against it.
After “Provoked”, Mundhra is planning “Shoot on Sight” another real life drama based on suicide bombings in London’s transport system in July 2005, which left 52 people dead.
— ANI
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